


Superhero’s Aren’t Perfect

by PerplexinglyParadoxialPerson



Series: The stories of the Captain America needs a hug hashtag [12]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Body Dysmorphic Disorder, Chronic Illness, Chronic Pain, Hurt Steve Rogers, Interviews, M/M, POV Outsider, Podfic Welcome, Steve Rogers has body image issues, Transformative Works Welcome, body image issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:40:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26127391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PerplexinglyParadoxialPerson/pseuds/PerplexinglyParadoxialPerson
Summary: Steve and Bucky’s project has finally come to fruition, and are interviewed about it
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: The stories of the Captain America needs a hug hashtag [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1466758
Comments: 26
Kudos: 71





	Superhero’s Aren’t Perfect

**Author's Note:**

> Surprise! For this series’ one year anniversary, I’m doing an extra post! 🥳🥳🥳
> 
> This story deals with body image issues, and chronic pain/illness, and this was my first time writing about them in depth, but with the help of my wonderful sensitivity readers, sam thesnake, and VexedBeverage, I could make sure that this was as accurate as possible!
> 
> I really hope you enjoy this, I’ve had this idea for a very long time, and am so glad to have it on (virtual) paper at last!

Saniyah was waiting eagerly for the promised interview on Steve and Bucky’s project, refreshing Twitter over and over so she could watch it as soon as possible. If it had really been inspired by the people that posted on the hashtag, then it had to be pretty interesting. Then a new post popped up, posted by the official Avengers Twitter, and she clicked on it immediately.

“Hello all,” The interviewer said as the screen faded in from black. “I’m Mustafa and today I’m interviewing Captain America and the White Wolf! Say hi guys.” 

“Hi everyone,” Steve said waving at the camera. 

“Why don’t we get straight to business,” Bucky said. 

“Fair enough,” The interviewer laughed. “We do have a lot to get through. You two recently posted a sneak peak on Twitter on a special project that you said would help a lot of people. Why don’t you two reveal it for everyone watching?”

“It’s a special calendar going on sale today,” Bucky said. “With one Avenger for each month, each one with a picture, and a few words from them.”

“And what gives that the ability to help people?” Mustafa asked.

“It’s all about the content of the pictures,” Steve said. “So many people see our polished press photos, the ones that are edited to hell and back, the ones that show us at our best. But the thing is, that leads to them seeing us as having perfect bodies, which only leads to them thinking less of themselves. We decided to show ourselves as we are, with scars, moles, weird birthmarks, grey hair, fat, and everything else that isn’t seen as perfect, things that would get edited out normally.” 

The Avengers, doing this? It was incredible! She had always been jealous of the Black Widow’s body, had tried so hard to emulate that perfection. It had always been a losing battle, but maybe she was just as imperfect as Saniyah, just with a better PR team. If the Black Widow, one of the most skilled, and highly trained assassins and heroes in the world wasn’t perfect physically, didn’t look like the press photos of her, then how would it be possible for an ordinary girl like her to be perfect?

“That’s a really brave thing to do,” Mustafa said. “With modern photo editing tricks, sometimes it can be so hard to tell what’s real and what’s not. It really makes body image issues a very prominent issue in modern times.” 

“Exactly,” Bucky said. “and every single cent that we make off of this calendar will be put towards a charity that the Avengers founded as a group called, ‘Superheroes Aren’t Perfect.’” 

“Well it does fit,” Mustafa said with a grin. 

“The main goal of the charity,” Steve said. “Is to raise awareness and provide support for people with mental health issues and disabilities. It’s such an important cause that is close to all of our hearts. All of the Avengers struggle with mental illnesses such as PTSD, yet so many people barely know anything about it, or even don’t think it exists at all!” 

“That’s such a worthy cause,” Mustafa said. “But who all is on the calendar? By my count there’s a few more than twelve Avengers!” 

“Thor wasn’t on the calendar because he’s off planet so we couldn’t contact him,” Bucky said. “As Spider-Man is cautious about his secret identity he won’t be in it, but he supports it wholeheartedly. As Vision isn’t human at all, he felt that him being in the calendar wouldn’t necessarily help our cause, but he supports it as well. On the calendar is Hawkeye, Falcon, me, Pepper Potts, Iron Man, Ant-Man, Steve, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Iron Patriot, Black Widow, and the Hulk. Surprisingly enough, most of us could actually take our birthday month!”

“I have questions about a few of those.” Mustafa said, raising an eyebrow. 

“Understandable,” Steve said. “A few of them haven’t been on a lot of missions with us, but they are definitely part of the team, they’ve been training with us for quite a while. As for Pepper, it may seem a bit out there. We didn’t have anyone left on the official roster who felt comfortable doing it, but Pepper is a very important part of the team. She’s like Peggy in a way, she may not go with us on missions, but does things that help more indirectly, but she’s as much an Avenger as Peggy was a Howlie, through and through.” 

“And she’s a bit more average in terms of fitness level.” Mustafa said. 

“That too,” Bucky laughed. “with what we do, and what we have to be prepared for, everyone is definitely on the fitter end of the scale. We do have a few people with their faces covered though, so they can hide their identities.” 

“Of course,” Mustafa said. “I’m curious though, with the lawsuit that’s going on right now about your image being owned by the US government, how are you allowed to use your image in this calendar?” 

“Oh that,” Steve said, rolling his eyes. “Put simply, they claimed ownership of Captain America, the image of the suit and shield and all that, so me being half naked should be fine, and they only had control of the White Wolf image because of a technicality. They made a comic in the war, had Bucky as my sidekick in a fancy outfit like mine, had him sign over the rights with him having veto power, to the sidekick version of him, and technically the White Wolf is a superhero sidekick, so it counts under that contract. So again, when he’s not White Wolf, it’s a bit looser.”

“So, for it to not count,” Mustafa said with a grin. “You had to be partially naked. I’m sure the rabid fans will be very happy about that” 

“Very much so,” Steve laughed. “We aren’t as exposed in the pictures as some people might want, because the whole point of this is to show we aren’t perfect, body-wise, to help people stop comparing themselves to the perfect images of us they had in their heads, not our good sides, or the best poses. All of us have fairly conservative bathing suit level coverage, probably more skin covered than you’d see at most beaches.” 

“You’ll probably have a lot of people buying it either way,” Mustafa said. “It’s not like you guys are seen at the beach regularly like a lot of other celebrities, and your uniforms cover your skin pretty well.”

“Yeah,” Steve said, sitting back in his seat. “It shows our scars and flaws, and makes people more likely to buy it. It’s a win for all of us.”

“And means a lot more money for the charity,” Mustafa said. “But I have to ask, why are you doing this? It’s obviously pretty important to you.” 

Steve and Bucky looked at each other for a second, then Bucky began to talk. “Actually, part of the idea, and even the name of the charity came from that specific hashtag.” 

“That specific hashtag?” Mustafa said. “You guys really are close to the people who post on that hashtag! Can you maybe tell me what that hashtag is?” 

“No can do.” Bucky laughed. 

“Are you sure?” Mustafa asked. “I mean, this is supposed to be a tell all interview...” 

“Nope!” Steve said cheerily. “I will tell you kind of how that hashtag inspired us though. So one of the people that posts on it said something about the video I posted, said that me saying that your attractiveness does not make you more or less worthy of love, somehow hit them harder than anybody else saying it, probably because the idea of Captain America being perfect and always right is taught to American kids everywhere. And that isn’t even mentioning how me being shown as the peak of human perfection is so common, and incredibly harmful to people with body image issues.” 

This… this idea, it had been inspired by  _ her  _ post? Her thankfulness had inspired this project, that might help so many people? It felt like a dream. If this was the extent of her impact on the world, she could die happy. If she was feeling encouraged already, just by hearing about the project, the possibility that her heroes weren’t nearly as physically perfect as she thought… how much would it help  _ other  _ people like her?

“And we figured that we may as well take advantage of him being seen as always right,” Bucky said. “And destroy the idea that he’s perfect, both physically and mentally. And when we found out that even the government was willing to hurt people’s self image to get people to join the army, we turned a vague idea into an immediate priority, only inspired more by the person on that specific hashtag.” 

“You already had the vague idea for that in mind?” Mustafa asked. 

Steve and Bucky looked at each other carefully, and Bucky put his hand on Steve’s. “It’s an issue that is actually really close to my heart,” Steve said. “I’ve actually had some pretty bad body image issues since I was a kid, so if I can help in any way, I will.” 

Saniyah couldn’t help but lean towards her computer screen in surprise, gasping with the shock. Was it really possible that he could… be like her in that way?

“You?” Mustafa said with wide eyes. “But you’re like... considered one of the most attractive people in the world!” 

“But I wasn’t always like this,” Steve said. “I was skinny and short, and very sick much of the time. I was made fun of a lot for my looks when I was a kid, and if you hear something often enough, consistently enough, and for long enough, then you start to believe it. It doesn’t matter how untrue it is, if you hear it often enough, you will start to believe it. The thing is, my ma was a single mother, and during that time it was a huge stigma, and me being sick was seen as a product of that.” 

“How so?” 

“Because of a lot of reasons,” Steve said. “Asthma was seen as mostly in your head when I was a kid, and people thought that because I didn’t have a da to ‘be an example’, that I was weaker, more prone to disease. Less of a man. It definitely didn’t help that while I was a kid, the eugenics movement was pretty entrenched in New York, and a lot of the doctors I went to would have sterilized me given half a chance because of how sickly I was. It was only due to ma being a nurse and knowing her stuff that I got through my childhood in one piece, and her teaching Bucky that stuff got me through to the serum.” 

“You’re joking!” Mustafa said, eyes wide. “I thought eugenics was only in Germany!” 

“Unfortunately you are very wrong,” Steve said sadly. “When I was young, there was even a... convention of sorts in New York about eugenics. That really didn’t help my self image, to know that all of those people probably would have sterilized me given half a chance, just because I was sickly. Of course, if I would have had the chance to have children before the serum, I wouldn’t have chosen to, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t deserve to have the choice.” 

“I spent a decent amount of time,” Bucky said, eyes soft. “trying to convince Steve that I loved him, that I was attracted to him, that I actually wanted him.” 

“That’s what body image issues tend to do,” Steve said. “Make you think that you’re unlovable just because you don’t look how you want to, make you attach your worth to your looks.” 

He had hit the nail on the head. She  _ knew  _ that feeling, had felt it for years. He knew what he was talking about, he  _ got it _ . She had never heard anything like it, a world renowned celebrity and hero saying something like that, having someone so strong to admit to those issues. It took her breath away. 

“And then,” Bucky said. “once Steve had properly started to believe that he was attractive in my eyes, that he was absolutely gorgeous, then he got the serum, and all my progress went down the drain.” 

“I would have thought it would be the other way around,” Mustafa said. “But I’m starting to realize that I really don’t know what I’m talking about when it comes to this.” 

“It is true though,” Steve said. “For one, body issues don’t just go away when you get that “ideal” body, at that point it’s a habit, so it just keeps going. But in some ways it was almost worse after I got the serum. Even though I knew for a fact that Bucky was only attracted to guys, I still kind of thought that Bucky might stop being attracted to me, was only attracted to me in the first place because I was small and slight enough to be mistaken as a girl in some lights.” 

“He was very wrong of course,” Bucky said. 

“But that wasn’t even all of it.” Steve said. “There was also the fact that I was swarmed with girls when I became Captain America.” The interviewer raised an eyebrow and looked confused, but didn’t interrupt. “All these girls who never would have looked at me once, much less twice when I was small were suddenly all over me. I was still exactly as awkward with girls as I had ever been, had the exact same personality that I always had, was the exact same person that I always was, and people started to pay attention when I looked more conventionally attractive. All they wanted were those looks, my fame, not what made me, me. It just pushed my self esteem even lower because I knew that body could have been on anyone, and they would have reacted very similarly.” 

“People react better to people who they find attractive,” Mustafa said. “that’s just a fact of life.” 

“Of course,” Steve said. “and I’m not saying to just completely ignore looks, or feel pressured into dating someone that you don’t like because they have a great personality, it was more one small thing on a huge pile of awfulness. It didn’t help that we had a few shows in New York, and a few times I saw girls that had dismissed me out of hand when I was smaller, go after me as Captain America, when I reacted almost the exact same way to them, just as awkward as before.” 

“That must have been so disorienting,” Mustafa said. “Seeing such a dramatic change like that in people.” 

“Definitely,” Steve said. “but it didn’t help that I had changed so quickly either. You know how teenagers can sometimes be pretty clumsy because they’re growing so fast that their brain isn’t keeping up? I grew about a foot and a hundred forty pounds in a minute. You don’t even want to know how clumsy I was when I first changed!” 

“But didn’t you chase down and catch a Hydra agent just minutes after you changed?” Mustafa asked. “And you did a stage show right after that as well!” 

“There was a reason I didn’t dance in the show at all,” Steve laughed. “but yeah, the serum definitely made my brain work quicker and adapt more easily, and the adrenaline helped a lot, but when I thought too hard about it, I would topple over. And half the time, I would completely forget that I was bigger and stronger, I constantly slammed my head into doorframes, accidentally mangled door handles and pencils because I forgot I was strong, and once I almost got stuck in a doorframe by my shoulders if it wasn’t for the fact I was strong enough to completely break it. 

Even now I sometimes forget that I’m big and strong because of how fast and dramatically I changed. I’ll look in the mirror when I wake up, and feel like I’m seeing a stranger in the mirror. That definitely doesn’t help with having a bad body image because of how disorienting and wrong it feels sometimes. It’s called body dysmorphic disorder, and it can truly be awful sometimes. It’s a lot better than it used to be, doesn’t happen nearly as often, and isn’t as intense, but sometimes… this body just feels wrong.” 

“I never thought about it that way before,” Mustafa said. “that actually sounds awful!” 

“Yeah, and seeing it firsthand is worse,” Bucky said. “I didn’t even see most of the stuff in the beginning, but the thing is, all the doorframes and stuff in Europe tended to be shorter, so I saw a lot of Steve forgetting he was bigger. It was kind of hilarious to see him so graceful and agile on the battlefield, so much skill in fighting and with his shield, then on leave he was constantly bumping his head, tripping over himself, smacking his shoulders into walls... I could go on.” 

“Please don’t,” Steve said dryly. 

“I saw a bit of a sneak peak of the calendar, ” Mustafa said. “and it looks pretty great so far! But you mentioned that you guys had some scars. I thought the serum healed you?” 

“That’s a common misconception,” Bucky said. “the serum does make us heal a lot quicker, and a lot better, but it does have its limits. If the wound is bad enough, is open long enough, or is reopened a few times it tends to scar. I have a lot more than Steve, mostly because of the kinds of things Hydra did to me, but for some reason we both did keep the scars we had before the serum.” 

“Some of my scars are weird,” Steve said. “I got more scars when I was a kid than Bucky, mostly because I fought bullies bigger than me regularly, but my body grew, so some of them actually stretched. I had a nasty scar on my left shoulder from being pushed into a brick wall, and now it looks stretched and really wonky. I do have a few from after the serum though, one nasty group of them on my stomach.” 

“And how did you get those ones?” Mustafa asked. 

“It was during the war,” Steve said. “We were fighting a group of Hydra agents and one of them threw a fragmentation grenade. I wasn’t up to my full skill with fighting yet, and managed to cover my chest with the shield, but not my stomach. I didn’t notice that I was injured, because adrenaline is a strong drug, so I finished fighting. And then it started to hurt. Bucky figured it out pretty quick, and we knew we needed to get the pieces out, but I had started to heal around them, so we had to do it pretty quick. Of course, the painkillers that they had didn’t work on me, so it wasn’t exactly a clean surgery, which led to me keeping the scars.” 

“The painkillers that they had didn’t work on you?” Mustafa questioned. 

“Yeah,” Bucky said wryly. “The syrettes they used then were tiny, didn’t have nearly enough in them to do much. We burn through any kind of drug, painkillers, anesthetic or alcohol like we do food; way faster than anybody else. If the dose is small, most of the time we’ll burn through it before it gets the chance to work at all. We need enormous doses to get it to affect us, especially for as long as is needed, and if we use a certain one often enough, we get used to it much quicker than anybody else, so it affects us even less. It’s a lot better now, but we still have to use them sparingly, save them for emergencies.” 

“That’s awful!” Mustafa said. “Wait, does that mean that if you have surgery, you have to stay awake?!”

No way! That was incredibly awful, no painkillers? No sedatives for surgery?

“Yeah,” Steve said. “Especially if it’s a normal hospital that isn’t prepared for super soldiers as patients. Let’s just say that I was very lucky that after I fell from the Helicarriers, I was unconscious, and stayed that way for a while.” 

“That is terrible!” Mustafa said. “I can’t even imagine how awful that might be! I think it needs to sink in a bit.” 

“It’s not the kind of thing people expect,” Steve said. “but it’s definitely a nasty side effect of the serum, shows that the serum isn’t perfect.” 

“Was definitely a big help though.” Bucky said. “Before the serum, Steve caught just about everything that you  _ could _ catch. Well, except for polio, which was incredibly lucky. Anyway, the serum was a bit of a miracle for both of us, despite the negatives.” 

“Yeah.” Steve said. “Before the serum, I was in pain all the time, so after I got it, I thought I had died and gone to heaven for a second because I  _ wasn’t in pain anymore _ , and if the serum had just given me that, without the speed or strength or anything, it would have been long past worth it.” 

“In pain all the time?” Mustafa asked, sounding confused. 

“Yeah,” Steve said. “It’s not something that’s talked about very often, chronic pain and illness, but it is surprisingly prevalent. Chronic basically means that you are always sick or in pain. There are days where it’s less obvious, not as bad, but it never goes away. Being in pain all the time... it’s draining like you wouldn’t believe, you have to plan so carefully around your energy and pain levels, and it’s only made worse by the US healthcare system, which makes it so expensive to pay for emergency room visits, doctor visits, and necessary medications. There’s this theory called the spoon theory that might give you a better idea of what I’m talking about. Put simply, let’s assume that a certain amount of energy is represented by a spoon. Every day, you have a certain number of spoons, which is affected by any number of things, most of which you can’t control. You can borrow spoons from the next day of course, but it means you only have less spoons that day. Depending on what your chronic illness is, your mental health situation, that kind of thing, you have a bigger or smaller average amount of spoons than everyone else.” 

“That sounds exhausting to manage,” Mustafa said. 

“It was,” Steve said. “and it’s only made more exhausting by the fact that, most of the time, people don’t believe you when you say that you’re in pain all the time. They say that you’re being dramatic, that you’re exaggerating, that you’re just plain lying, which makes it that much harder to get the accommodations that you need. Yeah, some people do lie about that kind of thing to get sympathy, that kind of thing, that doesn’t mean that people with chronic illness shouldn’t get those accommodations. For a lot of those with it, it’s physically impossible for them to do what the average person can, despite looking perfectly healthy and fine.” 

“Even I didn’t understand it well.” Bucky said sadly. “Before the war and everything, I thought that Steve’s bad days were days when he was  _ in  _ pain, not days where he was in  _ worse  _ pain than usual. I tried to understand it, but without the resources and connection with others like Steve that the internet provided, it was a lot more confusing.” 

“It definitely wasn’t helped by my pride.” Steve said. “I would refuse to admit to Bucky when I was hurting, refuse to take a break when I needed one, that kind of thing. Bucky was really fantastic at dealing with me at my most prickly though, and even though he didn’t really understand, he was always so supportive and caring.” 

“But I didn’t properly understand,” Bucky said. “Until I got the first metal arm from Hydra. It was way too heavy for me, attached in awful ways, and my shoulder ached every second I had it on. It was worse after time in cryo, or a hard fight, but it always hurt. This arm doesn’t hurt at all, but now I get what Steve felt all those years ago so much better. It’s so rough on you, physically and mentally, drags you down, especially when you’re already dealing with mental health issues.” 

“And for those of you out there,” Steve said, staring directly at the camera. “That have chronic illness or pain, that are dealing with it right now, we are here for you. We have been through this before, we get it, we know what you’re going through. You are not broken because of it, you can do great things, and we understand you.” 

Steve turned back to the interviewer. “There is not nearly enough visibility and support given to those with chronic illness and pain, and that is why I recently made a charity that will provide that, called the Sarah Rogers foundation.” 

“You are right,” Mustafa said. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a charity that focuses on that. I heard of chronic illness and pain vaguely and in passing, but I never really understood the significance of it, never had someone tell me what it really means for someone, mentally and physically.” 

“A lot of the time it’s almost embarrassing to mention that you have it.” Steve said. “With the way people react to it, it’s like saying that you’re broken, like you’re somehow less than them. But you have to remind people that you have it so often, because people just… forget that you’re in pain because they can’t see it. With a cast or a wheelchair, something like that, it’s a constant reminder that they aren’t perfectly healthy, can’t do exactly what most other people do, so they often aren’t expected to do anything that they can’t do. Of course, I couldn’t go around reminding other people of it as often as I needed to, because it was seen as me wanting attention and sympathy, special treatment, when I just wanted to work without stressing my body too much.

Of course, with so many people telling me that it wasn’t that bad, that I was only doing it for attention, I tended to doubt  _ myself _ about my pain. I’d tell myself that it couldn’t be  _ that  _ bad, that I could take more, that I was being too dramatic about it. Sometimes I was right, I could do more, but not without a lot of stress and pain. Other times, I really couldn’t take more and I’d end up fainting, sometimes from the pain, and sometimes from the combination of all of my other issues, which would stress my already weak immune system, and usually end up with me getting sick. I’d usually end up getting fired and spending a long time in bed, getting better. I’d end up feeling awful mentally because of that, feeling like I was useless, just because I couldn’t do everything that other people could, which would only make everything worse. If it wasn’t for Bucky being there for me and forcing me to rest once in a while, I would have died, no doubt about it. I didn’t want to be a burden on him though, so I rarely told him if I was having trouble.

Anyway, that only reinforced the idea that I needed to keep quiet about being in pain, physical or mental, and when I got the serum, and my body  _ could  _ take all that stress and more, it only made me more likely to not say anything to Bucky. And when I woke up in the future, I didn’t have Bucky anymore, the only person I would tell about my pain, so I just closed off more. It was just this awful tangled mess of issues, and I can’t thank my therapist enough for working with me on it, helping me work through it and get better at dealing with it.

Anyway, I went on a bit of a tangent, but the point is, issues like that can really mess you up, especially if you already have mental illnesses. I really just want to bring more visibility and understanding to this kind of thing.” 

“Definitely a noble cause,” Mustafa said. “It’s truly incredible the visibility you’ve been bringing to so many causes lately, showing that you don’t have to be the traditional straight white man to be a superhero. But I have heard a lot of people concerned about the racial diversity in the Avengers.” 

“That’s definitely understandable,” Steve said. “Personally, I always prefer to have as diverse a team as possible, not just in terms of race, but in experiences, backgrounds, skills, and so many other things. The more diverse my team is, the more opinions, the more different strategies, and the more options I have. And also, kids need role models that are like them. 

Of course, I’m not one to choose diversity just because I want diversity, the Howling Commandos were only as diverse as they were because I chose the best of the best, the ones that were the most skilled, in the kind of things I needed. 

Unfortunately, there are a lot of barriers for those who would have the skills and drive to become an Avenger that would prevent them from becoming one. For example, they might not get chosen for promotions over white people, they may not get a good education due to the school they go to and the area they live in, they may not have the money to get the training they need, all sorts of things that might prevent people from diverse backgrounds from becoming Avengers instead of white people.” 

“Of course,” Bucky said. “the way we’ve chosen who becomes an Avenger has always been a bit weird. At first, it was just two SHIELD agents, plus people with superpowers and a genius in a suit of armour. Since then, all the additions have mostly been people with superpowers that just happen to be in the right place at the right time. With everything with the Accords happening, we’ve been trying to figure out the actual rules about becoming an Avenger, staying an Avenger, how we’re called for duty, that kind of thing. It’s still being hammered out, but we’re actually becoming a proper response team, where before, it was heavily reliant on SHIELD.” 

“That’s a good thing to be aware of,” Mustafa said. “I’m really glad that you’ve already been thinking of it.” 

“It’s really important to me,” Steve said. “and we do have a lot of diversity in our... we call them Avengers-adjacent's, our scientists, our doctors, our legal team, our truckload of therapists, basically the guys at home that make it possible to do our work as efficiently and well planned as it is. Of course, they’re behind the scenes, so they definitely aren’t seen and appreciated nearly as much as they deserve, and we need some more diversity in the actual lineup, but it’s definitely something we’re aware of, and are working to overcome.” 

“I believe that it’s about time to wrap this up,” Mustafa said. “This has been an incredible interview, and I’ve learned a lot, but as much as I would like to chat with you two all day, we’re about out of time.”

“Bye everyone,” Steve said, turning towards the camera with a grin. “I can’t wait to see how much we make for this cause.” 

“They're mostly going to be buying it because of my gorgeous husband,” Bucky said with a smirk. 

But I can’t wait to see how much we make either.”

“Buckyy,” Steve whined, face turning red. “Not the time to flirt.” 

Then there was a cut, and they now looked calmer.

“But we’re here for you,” Steve said. “Remember that we’re here, that we get it. Whatever you’re struggling with, I hope this helps even a little bit. You may have issues, but everyone does, and it isn’t shameful to ask for help. We love you all.”

Saniyah sat there as the video finished, still shocked by everything they had said. To know that this had been inspired by the post she had made was… incredible beyond words. She realized she had tears rolling down her cheeks. She felt hopeful, she realized. To know that she was going through this, along with Steve, was incredible. She felt awful for him, knowing exactly what he had to go through, but he was making his way through this, so she could as well.

She heard the door open, and got up. Charlie had been at work when the video was meant to drop, she had to tell them that it was so much sadder than she had expected.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Note:Peter isn’t in the calendar because in every universe of mine, he’s trans, and at this point (while he’s also a minor) he wouldn’t want to be outed yet, so they just say that it’s because of secret identity reasons.
> 
> So I originally planned to make at least the images from the calendar, but I am not good at photo editing at all and have basically no experience with it, and then I couldn’t find pictures that would work with what I was trying to convey... it just wasn’t working. Sorry about that.
> 
> I have decided to add some more diversity to the Avengers team in this universe, but I don’t really have any knowledge of other superheroes in the Marvel Universe, so I’m asking you guys for help! In the comments, please tell me about a Marvel superhero (in the comics or movies) that hasn’t been brought up yet, that isn’t a mutant or in Agents of SHIELD, and is racially, religiously, or otherwise diverse from the normal Avengers. (Yes, them being LGBTQIA+, or having a certain disability can count as well) Please tell me at least their name and superhero name, as well as what medium they’re from (and the year that material came out as well), so I can actually find them! (And yes, all the other movie Avengers will be coming along once the timeline allows for it) Thank you all for being so amazing, I love you all, and can’t wait to see what superhero’s you write down!😘


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